For my life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing: my strength faileth because of mine iniquity, and my bones are consumed.
Parallel translations
- WEB For my life is spent with sorrow, my years with sighing. My strength fails because of my iniquity. My bones are wasted away.
- BSB For my life is consumed with grief and my years with groaning; my iniquity has drained my strength, and my bones are wasting away.
- NKJV For my life is spent with grief, And my years with sighing; My strength fails because of my iniquity, And my bones waste away.
- NASB For my life is spent with sorrow And my years with sighing; My strength has failed because of my guilt, And my body has wasted away.
- NLT I am dying from grief; my years are shortened by sadness. Sin has drained my strength; I am wasting away from within.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
David's life is consumed with sorrow and sighing, his strength and bones failing because of his affliction. It deepens the lament over his wasting condition.
Overview
Grief has drained David's vitality, and he even connects his suffering with his own sin. The verse honestly acknowledges both outward affliction and inner guilt. It reminds us that the weight of sin and sorrow finds its only remedy in the God who forgives and restores.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Ps 38:3There is no soundness in my flesh because of thine anger; neither is there any rest in my bones because of my sin.
- Ps 32:3–4When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long.
- Ps 88:15I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up: while I suffer thy terrors I am distracted.
- Ps 78:33Therefore their days did he consume in vanity, and their years in trouble.
- Rom 9:2That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart.
- Ps 39:11When thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity, thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth: surely every man is vanity. Selah.
- Job 3:24For my sighing cometh before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like the waters.
- Ps 13:2How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? how long shall mine enemy be exalted over me?
- Ps 102:3–28For my days are consumed like smoke, and my bones are burned as an hearth.
- Ps 71:9Cast me not off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength faileth.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 31:10 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.